Monday, February 27, 2012

Random Thoughts on Today's School Shooting

In case you haven't been around the news today, there was another school shooting in Ohio today in which one student was killed and four students were injured. Here's some thoughts:

Should teachers be armed? Yes. Any adult who is properly trained and chooses to be armed can make a big difference in the outcome of such an event as today's shooting.

It was reported that a teacher chased the shooter out of the school. Makes me wonder about the why's and how's of such action. Was the shooter out of ammo? Otherwise I am guessing he would have put a definitive end to the chase.

The shooter apparently posted a crazy rant on FaceBook as many kids are prone to do. Of course the difficulty is in determining the difference between random teenage rantings and a rant which is the precursor to actually shooting up a school.

It appeared that the school had been proactive in holding lock down and active shooter drills. A very good mark in their favor.

From the article it appears the shooter turned himself in to someone after the shooting so the police response to an active shooter situation is undetermined.

How do you protect your kids from such a situation? Obviously there is no good answer. It is a terrible thing to have small town schools look like fortresses complete with metal detectors and armed guards but the flip side is to have a school with no security in which any psycho with a firearm can come in and shoot up the place. Neither option sounds good.

My prayers go out to the family of the student who died in the shooting.

Very true. I certainly dont think that hitting up the gun control debate every time there is a school shooting is the best way to handle this type of problem. In fact, you will notice that whenever there is a mass shooting it usually takes place where people are LEAST likely to be armed.

Obviously arming teachers is the lesser of two evils (as opposed to arming students which would be stupid). An environment where everyone is supposed to be unarmed is too great an invitation to someone who wants to leave their mark on history in a most violent way. At least with the possibility of armed staff, shooters would think twice about going in and having a shooting spree if they thought they could meet armed resistance.